


Blessings of Flame

by gamera (Megan)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Altar Sex, Aphrodisiacs, Brainwashing, Branding, Canon-Typical Fantasy Racism, Consent Rendered Meaningless, Excessive Quantity of Come, Facials, Fingerfucking, M/M, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, Religious Rituals, Sex Slavery, This is Basically an Amalj'aa Sex Cult, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 17:26:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19407940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megan/pseuds/gamera
Summary: No one is unworthy of the word of the Inferno, but not all of the worthy serve in the same way.





	Blessings of Flame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VenatorNoctis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenatorNoctis/gifts).



> 'Canon-typical fantasy racism' refers to in-universe terms like 'beastman' and 'lizardman' used by a character from Ul'dah.

The Lord of the Inferno's breath is flame licking at the back of J'shai's neck even after he's led away from the rest of the group. It is the hot desert wind whispering in his ear and an implacable presence just out of his perception. Lord Ifrit is with him as he's led through the twisting passages and into the heart of Zahar'ak, there in the sound of voices that cannot belong to amalj'aa and every flickering torchlight shadow.

Obscene voices that cannot belong to amalj'aa, men and women moaning and giggling and begging _Lord Ifrit, please_ from places he cannot see. They aren't far away, but as much as he wants to look around he cannot. His neck won't turn, not with the sudden terror that floods through him at the thought of disobeying orders. His purpose is to follow, to concern himself only with learning his new orders, and he cannot fathom what it would be to fail with Lord Ifrit so close at hand.

Failing his master, his god, is unthinkable. The unknown of what his new purpose might hold is nothing against that dread.

He's finally brought to a stop before another altar, bookended by a pair of lit braziers. The flames are impossible to look away from, the heat from them the hands of his master upon him-- 

"What was your name among the unbelievers?" J'shai does know the amalj'aa at the altar by the bounty passed out by one of the hunting clans: Ghalebb Chah. He is a priest who only rarely leaves the confines of Zahar'ak but uplifts lucky nonbelievers with the blessing of Lord Ifrit whenever he does. Everything about him, from his ornate staff to his intricate headdress, is too distinctive for him not to be. 

"Private J'shai Tia of the Immortal Flames." His ears prickle and his tail droops at the insolence of it, that the unworthy men of Ul'dah would dare call themselves _Immortal Flames_.

"And do you know who I am, Shai who has not earned another name?" Ghalebb Chah does not sneer like some of the other amalj'aa had at their newly-saved believers. He remains serious, impassive, likely as daunted by the boundless blessing of Lord Ifrit, as cognizant of his unworthiness of it, as J'shai himself is.

No, not J'shai-- Shai. Ghalebb Chah is right to call him that; the J tribe is not his place any longer. As much as he might yearn to go back there, to sit around the fire and trade stories and see his family, his proper place is where Lord Ifrit wishes him to be. Perhaps someday that home will be with them again, after the Lord of the Inferno has cleansed the Garlean scourge from Gyr Abania and Lord Ifrit's cleansing flame burns forever in the heart of Rhalgr's Reach. But not now, now while he awaits his new purpose.

"Flamevoice Ghalebb Chah, who brings the word of Lord Ifrit to the unworthy." Shai barely gets the word _unworthy_ out before Ghalebb Chah reaches out with one massive hand and grabs him by the scruff like an unruly child.

"No one is unworthy of the word of the Inferno," he says in his rough voice, and for one terrible instant Shai stands paralyzed with the idea that he's disobeyed, that he's presumed to know what Lord Ifrit thinks. 

But then Ghalebb Chah lets go. 

"But even among my brothers, there are those who disagree. You have been told lies by those who believe that the favor of the one true god is in limited supply, that we must hoard it behind our barricades. That even those blessed as you have been can never serve a true purpose among us. Know it for the lie that it is."

"Please." His fear is gone in an instant, burned away by the hand of Lord Ifrit upon his back. He can almost feel it, claws scoring fire down his skin and marking him as worthy. But as soon as he tries to think about it, to focus on it, there's nothing there at all. "Please, tell me how I might serve our master."

"You will be baptized in flame," Ghalebb Chah rumbles, and Shai shivers at the thought. To feel Lord Ifrit's touch upon him in the flesh, instead of the phantom flicker at the edge of his awareness-- he _burns_ for it, his longing as bright as the braziers before him. "And you will be tested. If my instincts are correct and you are fit to serve among my people, you will receive your orders and your name. If you prove unsuited, you will go to another's command to find how you best serve Lord Ifrit."

_You will be tested_. He doesn't know what that might mean; none of the hunt bills has ever said what happens when Ghalebb Chah's soldiers bless a settlement and bring their new believers to worship in Zahar'ak.

"I will serve Lord Ifrit however I may." He's never meant anything with the absolute surety he speaks with now, never.

"You will be tested," Ghalebb Chah repeats, a warning that suddenly feels ominous and discordant. "Undress and cast the heathen filth you came in with into the flame. The sight of it is an affront to Lord Ifrit."

That isn't so bad, nor is it wholly unexpected; of course they would want to dress him in the manner of the amalj'aa if he's to serve under an officer who looks upon a miqo'te or hyuran or lalafellin believer as equal in worth to any other. He will go into whatever this baptism is freed of the uniform of a nonbelievers' army and leave it dressed as a supplicant of the Inferno. The more he thinks about it, the more profoundly it makes sense.

Ghalebb Chah lifts his great, terrible staff, and burns through the binding around his wrists with a flash of fire so brief it doesn't leave a mark on his skin. They had been tied behind him a lifetime ago, when he had been foolishly fighting and spitting and doing everything in his power to run from the blessing of the flame or die trying, and no one has bothered to remove them until now.

With his wrists freed, Shai can finally unlace his shirt and pull it over his head. The night air of the desert is chilly enough to raise goosebumps on his back, and walking close enough to a brazier to throw it in is a warm reminder of the benevolence of his master.

Whatever the cause-- magic, alchemy, divine intercession-- his shirt goes up in flames with an unnatural celerity, fabric disappearing in a whisper of smoke and leather curling up and crumbling into ash before his eyes. His gloves and wristbands go the same way, and soon all that remains of his belt is the buckle.

"Set your boots aside," Ghalebb Chah says when Shai bends down to unlace them. "We will burn them if you prove worthy. If you do not, you will need them to serve elsewhere until you learn to walk bare upon the sands."

He does so, stepping out of them and putting them aside. The stones are still warm under his toes, holding onto some of the heat from the day.

Once his trousers follow, he hesitates. Of course he intends to obey, but there's something so unsettling about standing naked and vulnerable before a lizardman. Instead of taking off his smallclothes, he stalls by taking off his ring and earrings and throwing them into the brazier one at a time. When that is finished, though, there's no avoiding stepping out of his smallclothes and dropping them into the fire.

"Good," Ghalebb Chah says. "Now kneel, that you may begin."

Shai is beginning to suspect that this may be something more than he'd expected, but he's helpless to do anything but drop to his knees. Perhaps it's nothing but swearing fealty, kissing the ring and prostrating himself before a flaming altar. He would do that without being asked, would welcome the chance to profess his obedience to Lord Ifrit.

Ghalebb Chah reaches into the brazier without so much as flinching and comes away with a handful of smoking ash, still aglow with tiny sparks. So wide is the span of one of his hands that it must be a bowlful's worth of ashes that he blows, sparks and all, onto Shai's upturned face.

It doesn't burn.

There is no pain, only a thrilling sense of rightness through the heat. He can smell only ashes, not burning hair or flesh-- he is completely untouched save for the dusting of ash that settles upon his face. The kiss of fire upon his skin makes his pulse race, his breath come faster as Lord Ifrit whispers flame in his ears.

Ghalebb Chah's next words are in the amalj'aa language, low and rough, and he runs his fingers down Shai's face and takes the ash with them. That doesn't hurt, either, no trace of tenderness where the sparks had alighted upon his skin.

"Lord Ifrit has blessed you above many others," Ghalebb Chah says. "Not many who come to him so late can stand the touch of fire so. You are cleansed of the sins you came to us with, and are ready to be tested."

"That wasn't the test?" Shai asks, that feeling of dread returning in full force.

"Stand." Ghalebb Chah sounds suddenly terse. "If you pass this test, your role will be to serve. You will be a vessel through which Lord Ifrit rewards those who please him. To do so is equal to those who mete out punishment, and he would have you take pleasure in serving."

There must be something he's missing. There's no way that the beastmen mean to use him for what it sounds like. No. But of course all he can do is rise to his feet, still looking at Ghalebb Chah with rapt attention.

"If you prove suitable, you will earn this place with my faithful in Zahar'ak." His voice rumbles with a terrible finality as he unties his loincloth. "Put your hands upon me."

He does. Lord Ifrit save him, but he reaches out and lays his palms flat on Ghalebb Chah's belly. How can he not, when he knows now that this is his place? Because he does know, feels it seared through his skin and into his bones that he is here to serve.

Ghalebb Chah's skin feels disgusting, unnatural-- dry and smooth, a lizard's skin in every sense. Everything in him wants to scream, and only the comforting heat climbing up his spine and reassuring him that he's obeying the will of his god stands between his inability to do so and going mad from the need of it.

"Higher," Ghalebb Chah says, but instead of guiding Shai's hand there he cups the back of his head in one monstrous hand and guides his face there.

His lips brush over a damp spot, a slit in the smooth dry skin that parts every so slightly under the kiss.

"Draw me out with your mouth," he orders, and Shai feels horribly ill as he parts his lips and begins exploring the slit with his tongue. Inside it's wet, dripping with coppery-sharp slickness that he laps up even as he feels tears welling up in his eyes. It's the only rebellion he has against this shameful act, his assurance that he doesn't want to swallow down the copious slickness flooding his mouth.

As he works, tonguing Ghalebb Chah open and bracing his hands against the solid muscle of his abdomen, he feels something pushing back. At first he thinks it's merely tension, pleasure as Shai is forced to service his foul, lizardman body, but no-- there's something pressing back, moving closer to Shai's mouth.

"Open," Ghalebb Chah says, just in time for what can only be the head of a monstrous cock to force its way into his mouth.

Shai blinks, watery-eyed and too shocked to move-- and unable to move the only way he wants to, away-- as his jaw sits forced open unnaturally wide, lips stretched too far and tongue forced to the bottom of his mouth as it pushes further in. It's-- it's far too big, surely there's no way his mouth has opened so far with scarcely more than a twinge.

"My men knew it as soon as you were tempered," he says with a groan. Shai makes a helpless sound in his throat, almost completely muffled by the cock gagging him. "That Lord Ifrit had blessed you this way."

Is Lord Ifrit why his jaw hasn't cracked open under the gargantuan girth? That would mean that this unnatural coupling is indeed his will, that he had looked into Shai's heart and seen someone he wanted his faithful to take their pleasure from. He's torn between joy and revulsion-- joy that he does have something Lord Ifrit values, but revulsion at himself that he does not have more of a use than to sheath the cock in his mouth.

There's so much of Ghalebb Chah, an unstoppable force slowly unsheathing further and further into his mouth, that he cannot do anything but stand and take it. Even if he had wanted to take initiative in pleasuring a lizardman, even if Lord Ifrit were whispering in his ear to move his tongue or bob his head or do anything he might do to a handsome man in the barracks, he cannot.

The lack of it does not seem to bother Ghalebb Chah, who lets out a triumphant grunt when his monstrous cockhead hits the back of Shai's throat. It's too much-- swallowing that down will suffocate him, completely fill his throat and steal away any ability to breathe. He can feel the tears on his face, drawing a path in the dusting of ashes on his cheeks on their way down. 

Surely Lord Ifrit does not want him dead, not now that he's poised to serve in such a way--

A ghostly warmth on his throat, the tease of his master's talons, bids him swallow Ghalebb Chah down anyway. Lord Ifrit has given Shai over to Ghalebb Chah to serve, and he knows better than Shai himself how much that service may demand of him. He expects pain, that his throat will be an agony he's never known before when it's stretched beyond what it's made for, yet he cannot help but swallow even as miserable tears continue to run down his face.

The pain does not come.

His throat is full, no question, so full that he cannot even choke on it. He's so profoundly full of Ghalebb Chah, so thoroughly gagged, and all he can feel is weak-kneed relief that he hasn't failed this test. The only thing worse than fucking the beastmen will be to fail at fucking them, to go through the indignity and have no triumph to show for it.

Ghalebb Chah rocks his massive hips, palm still holding the back of Shai's head to keep him in place, and Shai's knees buckle under him as his body spasms. Not painful, no, but only Lord Ifrit keeps his entire body from rebelling against this. The fiery breath upon his neck is more compelling than any need to breathe, but that cannot last.

"Soon enough the flame will be all you need, Lord Ifrit's will all you require to sustain you," he promises, thrusting into Shai's mouth again, and again, and again. The pace is slow and steady and so deep, the same rhythm as his words. "You are not there yet, but you will be. So far you are pleasing, and that honors Lord Ifrit."

He's not sure whether the lizardman tasting less foul than Shai would have expected is a blessing from his new master or a trial to be overcome. Everything about this should be abhorrent, as physically foul as it is morally foul, but it's... not. Ghalebb Chah tastes like he smells, dusty and sharp and a little metallic, when everything about a beastman's cock should be anathema.

At least, it's less foul so far. His gut twists itself into more knots about what it might taste like when a lizardman spills himself, about how much is going to pour down his throat in a torrent he cannot stop. So much of it that he'll be too full, surely, belly bulging out and straining to hold it all.

The thought of it makes his blood run cold, colder than their night air on his bare skin. The indignity of it, to be so visibly the property of a beast-- it would be one thing were he to serve Lord Ifrit himself in such a way. He would gladly give of his body to the Inferno, walk through the streets of Ul'dah naked and dripping steaming come from his lips, down his thighs; that would be something to be proud of.

Shai is saved from the ultimate indignity, if only temporarily, when Ghalebb Chah pulls out of his mouth entirely. Steps away from him, no guiding hand on the back of his head, as Shai gasps and coughs.

"Still you struggle." Is that what passes for a murmur from someone so large and loud as Ghalebb Chah? "Your soul is purified and willing, but your weak, heathen-born flesh will take time to temper properly."

His cock still hangs out, wider than Shai's forearm and covered in ridges he hadn't noticed while his mouth had been slowly wrenched open. It drips onto the sand, the smell of it clean and sharp and altogether less abhorrent than the precome of a beastman ought to be. There's so much of it-- surely not even a roegadyn would spill such an amount without coming-- and he cannot take his eyes away from it.

"Would Lord Ifrit wish you to waste a warrior's offering?" Ghalebb Chah asks, looking down as if following Shai's gaze to its only possible conclusion. "We have brought you into the light, into the warmth of the flame, and I have told you of the honorable purpose you were remade for; now you must fulfill that purpose and take pleasure in it."

He leans forward, mouth open, and closes his eyes even as he tries to suck the precome off the head of Ghalebb Chah's cock. It's so big that he has trouble doing more than letting it sit in his mouth until he has to swallow down a mouthful of slickness, and when he pulls back to do so Ghalebb Chah takes hold of his hair again.

Instead of thrusting down into Shai's throat again, this time he doesn't use his mouth at all. His face is shiny with precome, his hair beginning to soak with it, and all Ghalebb Chah does is rub his massive cock through the mess of tears and ash. Faster and faster, and when Shai cannot help but wonder how long this humiliation will go on he pulls away.

For only an instant; his cock hits Shai in the cheek with the force of a slap. It's enough to send him staggering, bruising force that will leave half his face swollen, and in the instant he's off-balance and gasping in surprise and pain there's an entirely new flood of liquid on his face: Ghalebb Chah has come, thick and burning hot and terrible.

It's everywhere, more than even a creature of his size should be able to come. It's in his hair, pouring into his open mouth, running down his throat and collarbones and chest. After he swallows the first mouthful, stomach roiling at the fact that he can't do anything but, he opens his mouth for another. And another and another, until after the fourth mouthful of liquid fire settles heavy in his gut it finally stops.

"Wipe off your eyes," Ghalebb Chah says after a moment of heavy breathing. "Your service to Lord Ifrit is to be looked upon and honored."

That, at least, is an order he doesn't flinch at following; in getting any amount of the foulness off his face, he and the priest of Lord Ifrit are of one mind.

"Do not waste it," Ghalebb Chah reminds him as he wipes at his eyes, and just like that their accord on how to best serve Lord Ifrit is shattered. He knows what the lizardman means him to do, and he's powerless to stop himself from slipping his fingers into his bruised mouth and sucking the salty thickness down. Again and again, until his hands are clean and he can open his eyes without his lashes sticking together.

His mouth feels dry as the desert around him, sticky and foul. To ask for water feels like it must be sacrilege when all he should need to sustain himself is fire, to feed upon the flame and the favor of his master. The feeling is only made worse when Ghalebb Chah takes a waterskin off his belt and drinks deeply from it; Shai cannot take his eyes from it.

Ghalebb Chah laughs like an earthquake, like finality.

"This will not quench your heathen thirst," he says. "But what it awakens in you may distract you from your false teachings."

He lowers the waterskin, presses it to Shai's lips and tips it back-- and holds it there when Shai tries to recoil and spit, for he'd spoken true that it wouldn't lessen his thirst. It's not water, but some sort of liquor that burns like nothing he's ever had before. He's drinking bitter fire, and he would _almost_ prefer another moutful of lizardman come. But with his mouth forced open by the spout of the waterskin between his teeth, his only choices are to swallow or to drown.

Shai coughs and gasps when the skin is finally pulled away, the raw places in his mouth stinging and tears in the corners of his eyes again.

"Come." Ghalebb Chah leads Shai by a heavy hand on his shoulder without waiting for him to follow on his own. The few steps to reach the altar feel interminable, and as he stands before it he feels an odd prickle in his skin that he tries to ignore.

There are what must be handholds over the altar, placed that someone the size of an amalj'aa might brace themselves over it. They sit far out of even the tallest man's reach, to say nothing of Shai's, until Ghalebb Chah picks him up about the waist and lifts him to the altar.

The prickling in his skin roars fully to life when Ghalebb Chah's hands touch him, making him thrash and howl as fire licks over him and blood rushes to the surface. His swollen mouth throbs in time with his heartbeat, and-- horrifyingly-- his cock twitches to halfhearted attention.

It must be the drink. _What it awakens_ \-- this humiliation is what Ghalebb Chah had meant.

Bent over the altar like this, hands barely reaching the metal holds, his entire back is exposed and vulnerable. Even more so when, after a moment, Ghalebb Chah spreads his thighs as easily as one might open a book and presses something slick against his hole.

No, he wants to scream, but his mouth won't do anything but make a wordless, miserable groan.

The slippery warmth flexes-- it must be his finger, Ghalebb Chah is pressing a finger into Shai. Shai, who finds he cannot summon any physical resistance as his hole twitches and then relaxes. The skin there feels as oversensitive as everywhere else thanks to that damnable potion, and the burn as Ghalebb Chah's finger breaches him feels _good_.

"You begin to realize your place," Ghalebb Chah rumbles, approving as he begins to work his finger in further. "Meditate upon what Lord Ifrit tells you as I prepare you to bear his mark."

That massive finger fucking into him shouldn't feel good, but it does. It stokes the same fire in him that he feels when Lord Ifrit whispers to him, makes his cock reach full hardness despite the hideous wrongness of all of this.

"Nnn-" he almost says it, almost manages _no_ , but Ghalebb Chah chooses that moment to thrust his finger in all at once. 

Shai's words turn into a wail as he jerks with pleasure and surprise, his protest lost.

"Have a care for what you say," Ghalebb Chah warns him. "To reject your role is to blaspheme against Lord Ifrit. You will know this to be true when you meditate."

Ghalebb Chah switches to the amalj'aa tongue then, saying something that Shai cannot hope to understand. As he speaks, low and sonorant, he continues fucking Shai on his finger at the same steady cadence he speaks in.

Shai catches himself breathing in the same rhythm as it goes on, inhaling and exhaling in time to Ghalebb Chah's rhythmic words. He tries to stop when he realizes, to not relax into the violation, but the heat in his skin and the hypnotic cadence of the words strip him of any ability to focus.

_Feel_. The lick of flame is back at his ear, upon his nape, back with the surety of what Lord Ifrit desires from him.

Ghalebb Chah runs something over his back, he realizes vaguely, something light and ticklish that makes him squirm. It feels too good on his alchemically-sensitized skin, and he clenches down on the finger in involuntary response.

He should let go of the handholds, find some way to run. To serve Lord Ifrit is paramount, but to feel such pleasure being violated by a beastman is an indignity that cannot possibly please the Lord of the Inferno. Why would a god whose will is law, whose fire is benevolent and cleansing, want to see a loyal worshipper brought so low?

_Feel._ Lord Ifrit's breath is all-consuming, and so is his want. He wants to see Shai obey, to see him prove that he will bear this shame. What sort of servant would he be if he only wanted to serve in ways he could be proud of? What need has he for dignity among the heathens when he has fire in his veins?

Shai rocks back against Ghalebb Chah's hand, even as he still mouths _no_ without making a sound. He still doesn't want this to be true.

"You are ready to hear his word," Ghalebb Chah says, and a breath later Shai burns again.

That is not a pretty turn of phrase this time; his skin sears where Ghalebb Chah has traced something over it, a twisting line of fire down his spine. It's agony yet not, the word of the Inferno scorched onto his skin an overwhelming rightness even as it hurts. And as it goes on something about the feeling changes: Ghalebb Chah has begun chanting again, still thrusting, and the breathless white heat that should have him scrambling to get away only drives him higher.

The favor of Lord Ifrit, the touch of fire, is what he wants to feel pleasure from-- better to take enjoyment from that than to give in to a beastman. So he doesn't mouth _no_ as he feels the tension begin to build in him, as pleasure and pain coil together and fill him until he breaks under their weight.

" _Lord Ifrit_ ," he gasps as he spills himself all over the altar. He's sobbing, he realizes, weeping at what he's been reduced to and in awe at the majesty of his god and because everything is too much on him and in him and whispering in his ear. "Lord Ifrit, Lord Ifrit--"

As his breathing settles into soft weeping, Ghalebb Chah pulls his finger away at last.

"A prayer," he says, tapping at Shai's burned back with his other hand. Shai's tail lashes, but otherwise he rides out the pain. It's better than the alternative. "To carry with you wherever you go. In time, you may gain favor and win the right to wear more prayers."

Shai wants to cringe at the thought of the lizardmen marking him further, at what the amalj'aa writing must look like crawling up his spine. But at the same time, the thought of reaching his climax like that under the flame, to come at the touch of Lord Ifrit and feel he's worthy to be the lover of his god-- _that_ is a favor, a privilege won, a prize.

Ghalebb Chah takes him by the waist again.

"Let go," he says. "We are done here until you next earn a blessing from a priest. Perhaps once you learn to take a proper cock."

Shai does. He should be looking for an opportunity to resist, but what would be the point? Lord Ifrit wants him here, and seems to want him to obey Ghalebb Chah's every abhorrent order. He lets go and stays silent save for the tears he can't quite stop as he's led away, deeper into the heart of Zahar'ak.

_Take a proper cock_ does frighten him, but only vaguely and not so much as it should. The more imporant part of that thought is _next earn a blessing_ ; if he can swallow his disgust, if he can survive a lizardman like as not to split him in two, he might feel that searing ecstasy again.

If he focuses on that, meditates upon the touch of Lord Ifrit, perhaps he won't go mad here.


End file.
